Highlights:

Aorta stiffness, exercising etc. influence the short-term memory.

Long-term exercising improves the central artery elasticity.

Sex and BMI are markers for memorizing..

The general belief is that brain aging is a natural process, just like aging in general. With brain aging over time, there is an increased risk of suffering from different diseases like the cerebrovascular disease, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and others. There are different articles related to different brain conditions like this here and here but on this article, we will be writing about the things someone can do in order to slow the brain aging process.

Get informed about the study.

“Physical Fitness and Aortic Stiffness Explain the Reduced Cognitive Performance Associated with Increasing Age in Older People” is a study published in the online IOS Press journal with leading author Greg Kennedy, a Ph.D. candidate. The aim of this study was to understand and analyze whether physical exercise and aorta elasticity are somehow related to improved cognition.

The research included 29 men and 73 women, aged from 60 to 90 years old, who were living in the elderly care institutions in Australia. Participants would undergo the Six Minute Walk test by walking forward and backward between two markers 10 meters far from each other. Researchers analyzed the cognitive achievement and stiffness in the arteries. Those participants who didn’t complete the whole six minutes weren’t analyzed.

What did experts discover?

From the analysis, researchers discovered that, including BMI and sex, the physical activity put together with aorta stiffness was responsible for about 30% of the difference in the accomplishment of the short-term memory for the participants. As a matter of fact, the traditional concept for a reduce in memorization capability is mainly credited to the process of aging. Bot, on the other hand, elders don’t usually do physical exercise as well as they have more inflexible arteries, so maybe this is a more reasonable and rational explanation about memorization struggle.

Moreover, researchers didn’t find any reduction in the central arteries stiffness as a result of the physical exercise tests. But, this should not be considered as an indicator because researchers only analyzed the study’s exercising. Further, leading author adds that a regular long-term physical activity may indeed be beneficial for the elasticity of the central artery.

The results of this study indicate that remaining as physically fit as possible, and monitoring central arterial health, may well be an important, cost effective way to maintain our memory and other brain functions in older age.